cycling, ammonia spike then nothing?

[chirojosh]

I have cycled tanks before so I know what to look for. Its been cycling for 2 weeks now, measured an ammonia spike of .50 3-5 days ago. Measured today and ammonia was at 0. Great, then did nitrite expecting to see a spike, and it was 0? Where did the ammonia go? Is it possible the live rock didnt have the bacteria at first for the ammonia spike, but had enough of the type that coverts nitrite? Im going to let it settle longer and test again.?

[sponger0]

Chances are you just had a quick cycle. Did you use all live rock?

[chirojosh]

in a 75g, about 40lbs live, 35 dry
Nitrate is either 0 or up to 10 on API my eyes cant tell the difference

[coralsnaked]

What are the Nitrates testing, as is the last part of the cycle.

[sponger0]

Well need to know if its 0 or 10. If you cant tell, have someone else look or get a different test kit.

[sponger0]

What are the Nitrates testing, as is the last part of the cycle.

He said 0 or 10. He isnt sure which cause cant tell with the API color range.

[agiacosa]

I would suggest you test the cycle again by adding ammonia to 4ppm and seeing what happens over the following few days. It should drop quickly (hopefully, overnight).

Then test for nitrate and you should see an increase. If you don't, then test for nitrites. Nitrites should be present.

The idea is to make sure that nitrification is taking place.

[chirojosh]

He said 0 or 10. He isnt sure which cause cant tell with the API color range.

F these test kits seriously, 0 is yellow, 5 i syellow, and 10 no way still f'in yellow! Really?!

[sponger0]

This why certain API kits I dont like.

[chirojosh]

whats a quick way to raise ammonia? when I use food or a piece of shrimp it seems to take 7-10 days to register.

[Rookieofsalt]

2 weeks is still early stage. You need to test nitrites not nitrates. Nitrates only spike at the end of the cycling periods.

[chirojosh]

well I decided to check the nitrate on my source water and compare to the DT. They are the same, so Im assuming the cycle hasnt completed since nitrate hasnt increased at all, they seem to be both at 0 if I had to wager. Im assuming I will see the nitrite spike over the next few days.

[chirojosh]

every cycle Ive done before had ammonia spike, but would have low nitrite reading as the ammonia dropped. This time it was ammonia spike then zip, so Im waiting for the nitrite spike, never had it skip days b4 between ammonia drop and nitrite spike

[Fizz71]

You have to be careful...if your live rock was in really good shape you may see 0 cycling at this point and without any new feeding in your tank you may not get readable nitrates for a while. Topping out .5 of ammonia is not very high and like you said...reading low nitrates is tough. Salifert has a low range/high range test but the low range is basically just a dilution of the high range. :) ...but it does allow a .2 to 10 reading.

Your .5 ammonia might have generated a 1ppm nitrate reading and that's all you're going to get.

If you're unsure you can feed the tank, but like I said..if your rock was cycled already and the exposure to the elements on build were minimal, you could be done.

[chirojosh]

Interesting, I'll test daily over the next week for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and see if there are any changes, if not I'll add a small cleanup crew.